Rating: 
Summary: A solid introduction to a complex subject
Review: How anyone could read this book and come out thinking Terry Eagleton is an ivory-tower elitist is a mystery to me. And while he's undeniably a Marxist, he speaks English as though it were his first language. That's more than you can say for far too many literary theoreticians, Marxist or otherwise. For me, Eagleton's great strength is that he approaches literary theory as a process, an ongoing argument, rather than as a body revealed truth writ in stone. The virtue of this approach is that literary theory is, in fact, an ongoing argument. If you want the word from the mountain, this may not be the book for you; but if you genuinely want to acquaint yourself with the subject, it's a good place to start.
Rating:
Summary: a review for the layperson
Review: I have inadequate knowledge of all the major books that detail the various literary theories of the late 20th century, so I cannot evaluate this book as a comprehensive- or competent- enough survey of them.But what I can say is that the ideas which this book introduces and explains (very well) have influenced me profoundly. To grasp the ideas of literary theory through Eagleton's prose is not just to become more adept at understanding or analysing works of literature; it is indeed to become aware of the profound implications (and hidden mechanisms) of language and signification in our intellectual, social, political, and personal lives, which are all inter-related. This awareness allows one to penetrate diverse cultural artifacts, from films to novels to Presidents' speeches, and to unearth and recognize in them preconceptions, personal agendas, political alignments, creative modes of authorship, etc.: i.e., all that is not simply stated but implied or built-in, consciously or sub-consciously. And this awareness would not come about without Eagleton's own unapologetic and incisive criticism of the very theories he describes and their roles in our time. In brief: if you thought 'text' only means the black ink between book covers; or that 'meanings' are stable and easy to communicate, then this book will very excitingly challenge you on those counts and expand your intellectual horizon.
Rating: 
Summary: honestly biased
Review: I just finished reading Terry Eagleton's Literary Theory: an Introduction for the third time in 10 years, and was even more impressed than before. I agree to a large extent with the other reviewers on this thread who called Eagleton to task for his obvious biases. From the beginning of the book, however, Eagleton makes it clear that his is a biased history of modern literary theory. While he eventually slams most of the theories he presents for one reason or another, he also has the admirable ability to present each theory in a favorable light before saying what he thinks is wrong with it. Again and again I found myself won over by a theory only to have it torn apart, after which he would present the next theory and I would say "Ah! Now this is more like it" - at which time he would pull the rug out from under that one.
The important thing to keep in mind when studying any account of critical theory, including and especially this one, is to be critical. It would be as much of a mistake to take Eagleton's word as gospel as it would anyone else's. If you read this with what psychologist Charles Tart called an "open mind, discriminating mind," It's a fine overview of a dense and potentially hermetic field of study. Eagleton doesn't provide the final word on any of these theories, but I think this book is an excellent jumping-off point for further inquiry.
Rating:
Summary: No win situation
Review: I love this book, especially the new edition, which has a lot of funny metaphors in it which I don't remember seeing in the first edition. For instance, when Mister Eagleton says
that "literature for the deconstructionists testifies to the impossibility of language's ever doing more than talk about its own failure, like some barroom bore," or that the New Critics rematerialized the text with "a vengeance, making it seem less like a process of meaning than something with four corners and a pebbledash front." I hardly consider such analyses ivory tower eltism, which I would accuse Mister Eagleton (and other Marxist critics) of being guilty in his other books. But this is a very readable book for the most part, though difficult in places due to the abstract nature of his subject, and a necessary book for any youngster contemplating majoring in literature in college. Had I known what I was getting into, had this book been available in 1975--well, what I felt when I was young--the crisis that was going on with a new generation of us hopelessly oafish philistines wanting to get some sort of an education in the art of eloquence, caught between the elitism of Literature as a special kind of language fetish (literature of the stuffed shirts), versus literature as a deeply meaningful experience for everyone who wanted to have it--well, the crisis is still with us, and it is worse and more schizoid than ever. Mister Eagleton is funny at times, and quite objective about movements like feminist criticism which he admires, admitting
ironically that the movement has in some ways taken a swing back over to the right, literary studies now more than ever being a woman's domain: "A new generation of literary students and theorists was born, fascinated by sexuality but bored by social class, enthused by popular culture but ignorant of labour history, enthralled by exotic otherness but only dimly acquainted with the workings of imperialism." If Mister Eagleton undermines his own argument, it is in the fact that he has crafted a well-written text. He has created a work of art in its own right worthy of close reading, separating it from lesser works in his field. After all, if literature is nothing more than ideology, and if the only clear standards for evaluating a text is in its ability to strike at the deepest problems facing humankind today, then why should Mister Eagleton conform ironically so closely to the well-crafted metaphors and carefully honed sentences and high-fallutin phrases of the art for art sake crowd who we can't evauluate stylistically anyway because its the ideology, not the style that matters? Why not write more for us common folk, maybe slop down a few Danielle Steele cliches so that all us working class blokes can understand him better?
Rating:
Summary: What could be called as literary text?
Review: Literary theory is the answer to the questions like ¡®what is the literature?¡¯ or what could be called as literary text?¡¯ it seems, at a glimpse, a simple and obvious matter. You could enumerate literary texts like ¡®Hamlet¡¯, ¡®Faust¡¯ , ¡®Huckleberry Finn¡¯ and so on. But in the 17th century, Gibbon¡¯s ¡®Rise and Fall of Roman Empire¡¯ was considered as a literary text just as Blake¡¯s poem was so. And these days, someone read the Bible as literary text not as religious text declaring truth about the world. The boundary of literature has drifted over time. Terry Eagleton argues that the literature as such hasn¡¯t existed on earth at all. What could be called as literary text is neither self-evident (or objective) nor arbitrary (or subjective). Then the question of literary theory should be changed like this: ¡°What lies ¡®in-between¡¯?¡± What is literary text is determined by canon. ¡®Norton Anthology¡¯ which is widely used in undergraduate classes is the material example of canon. Canon, in this case, is comprised through political haggling in academics. This is the position of hermeneutic conception of ¡®tradition¡¯ which has been also applied to the philosophy of science. Tradition is carried by the community of artists and critics, and determines which is literary text. Reception theory is the logical extension of that point. ¡®Bring reader back in¡¯ is its motto. Now reader claims the citizenship in the community of literature. In sum, hermeneutics and reception theory perceive the ¡®in-between¡¯ as a institution which lies among academics, publishers, critics, and reader. It¡¯s inherently volatile for it floats over the contingency of political wrangles over justified interpretation of text by various actors. In the approaches of hermeneutics and reception theory, which all have the German origin, regard the text as corpus of meaning. Reading text is the fusion or even collision between author¡¯s and reader¡¯s horizon of meaning. Indeed, it¡¯s the real life of reading. But as in the philosophy of science betrays, that kind of position tends to slip into relativism. Here comes in the structuralism.
In the world of structuralism, all such words like author¡¯s intention, the value of the work, and historicity in text lose their right to exist. All the particular texts are dissected and reduced to the universal laws of structure. All the element of text make sense only in relation to other elements. Then, text refers to the totality of those relations. The text tells itself. The content of text is its structure, that is, the totality of relations between elements which are inherently arbitrary in itself. There is no need to concern about author¡¯s intention or its context in time and space which, by definition, we can¡¯t access at all.
This is the point shared by all formalist theories like Russian Formalism, American New Criticism, and semiotics. Now all the texts are objectified and demystified, or de-subjectified. Structure, by definition, could be identified by anybody. Now reading and critique become the scientific activity meeting the principle of reliability.
But in such a picture, we can¡¯t find ourselves. We live and touch, day by day, the world of hermeneutics. Structuralism brackets the everyday reality where personal, social, and historical meanings still matter. Sign always refers to something. Thus it has meaning. Structuralism¡¯s text is not the earthly text we read. Text, or language is always mobilized to bring some intended effect. In Giddens¡¯ term, it¡¯s the resource mobilized by intentional social actor. Therefore, text has the intention which has been called as meaning. The text is the effect. Now the language should be turn into the discourse. In this vein, Eagleton argues the literary text has always been political. It¡¯s political in the sense that text is discourse, and discourse is practiced in social context. Eagleton argues, with persuasive power, that not only the text is political, but also the literary theory is political: Reading text ends in reading the social world and history.
Above is recapping of Eagleton¡¯s main thread. With no doubt, it¡¯s not all of the book and there are so many details not to be skipped away. And that, I omitted two chapters on deconstructionists like Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, Kristeva, Yale school and psychoanalysis, for I think those are not necessary to draw up the big picture of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Who's afraid of a little Marxism?
Review: Many of my fellow reviewers slam Eagleton for his Marxism, which they call a "bias," and then claim Eagleton is "simplistic." Calling someone's perspective a bias just because you don't agree with it is the epitome of simplistic. If you aren't filled with antipathy to Marxism, you will be deeply grateful to Eagleton, who has run the risk of being called simplistic and biased so he can take you on a refreshingly easy walk through some dauntingly abstract and complicated stuff, and give you an idea of why it might all matter. You don't have to be a Marxist to appreciate this.
Rating:
Summary: A great read
Review: Some years ago I had the pleasure of reading Mr. Eagleton's jolly little book, which I found both intellectually sharp and pleasantly down-to-earth and commonsensical, and it fanned my zeal to explore further, aiding me greatly in beginning my journey through the jungles of literary theory. I have recently reread it and remain grateful to the book. A hearty second to Scott Banks' review!
Rating: 
Summary: Some good and some bad points.
Review: Terry Eagleton's "Literary Theory" advertises itself as a clear, lucid introduction to the topic, written for the unitiated. In many ways, the book fulfills this promise, particularly in its discussions of the New Criticism, reception theory, hermeneutics, deconstruction and the overall arch of literary theory's history. Eagleton also does a superb job of placing each of these theories within their sociopolitical context (no surprise there). Most of this book is engaging and well-written. There are weak areas, however. In his discussions of structuralism, phenomenology and a few other areas, Eagleton gets bogged down and its difficult to get straight to the heart of these methodologies, which is ostensibly the point of this book. Overall, though, I recommend this to anyone interested in literary theory as an historical and academic phenomenon, and as a fascinating subject in itself, even if you find much of it obscurantist and even devious (which many do). People looking for other introductions to this topic might also look at the equally superb "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction" by Cornell deconstruction guru Jonathan Culler, or Peter Barry's excellent "Beginning Theory."
Rating:
Summary: Some good and some bad points.
Review: Terry Eagleton's "Literary Theory" advertises itself as a clear, lucid introduction to the topic, written for the unitiated. In many ways, the book fulfills this promise, particularly in its discussions of the New Criticism, reception theory, hermeneutics, deconstruction and the overall arch of literary theory's history. Eagleton also does a superb job of placing each of these theories within their sociopolitical context (no surprise there). Most of this book is engaging and well-written. There are weak areas, however. In his discussions of structuralism, phenomenology and a few other areas, Eagleton gets bogged down and its difficult to get straight to the heart of these methodologies, which is ostensibly the point of this book. Overall, though, I recommend this to anyone interested in literary theory as an historical and academic phenomenon, and as a fascinating subject in itself, even if you find much of it obscurantist and even devious (which many do). People looking for other introductions to this topic might also look at the equally superb "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction" by Cornell deconstruction guru Jonathan Culler, or Peter Barry's excellent "Beginning Theory."
Rating:
Summary: Some good and some bad points.
Review: Terry Eagleton's "Literary Theory" advertises itself as a clear, lucid introduction to the topic, written for the unitiated. In many ways, the book fulfills this promise, particularly in its discussions of the New Criticism, reception theory, hermeneutics, deconstruction and the overall arch of literary theory's history. Eagleton also does a superb job of placing each of these theories within their sociopolitical context (no surprise there). Most of this book is engaging and well-written. There are weak areas, however. In his discussions of structuralism, phenomenology and a few other areas, Eagleton gets bogged down and its difficult to get straight to the heart of these methodologies, which is ostensibly the point of this book. Overall, though, I recommend this to anyone interested in literary theory as an historical and academic phenomenon, and as a fascinating subject in itself, even if you find much of it obscurantist and even devious (which many do). People looking for other introductions to this topic might also look at the equally superb "Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction" by Cornell deconstruction guru Jonathan Culler, or Peter Barry's excellent "Beginning Theory."
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